Daesh on verge of final collapse in Iraq, Syria after losing last major cities

The Daesh Takfiri group has virtually reached the point of annihilation in Iraq and Syria after its last two substantial urban strongholds in both countries were captured by government and allied forces during operations which reduced the presence of the terror group to pockets of barren desert.

On Friday, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that government forces liberated the border town of al-Qaim in Anbar province.

The fresh gain means that the Daesh terrorists in Iraq are now in control of just the smaller neighboring town of Rawa and surrounding pockets of barren desert along the Euphrates River.

Also on Friday, Russian-backed Syrian forces declared that they recaptured all of Dayr al-Zawr, noting that the city “was the headquarters of the organization’s leadership, and in losing it, they lose their capacity to direct terrorist operations.”

Syrian forces broke Daesh’s three-year siege of government-held parts of Dayr al-Zawr after they entered the city in September.

Government forces are now about 40 km away from the eastern border town of Bukamal, preparing for their final confrontation with remnants of the terrorist group.

The twin losses on both sides of the frontier reduces the former self-proclaimed caliphate that once ruled over millions of people in a large swath of territory into a single Syrian border town, a village on a bank of the Euphrates in Iraq and some patches of nearby desert